does this hurt your eyes?

Pete suggested that maybe I could make him a quilt. I said, okay, you pick out some fabrics and voila! This is what I came up with! This is only part of what will be a quilt about twice this big. It may be arranged differently too, depending on what surfaces in the other blocks. The name of this quilt is "Keyhole" or "Keyholes" which only my sister in law Amy made sense of for me. She said that it's like you're looking into a key hole and the eye is drawn down this corridor. OH! I like that a lot. I think looking at the quilt with your own eyes in person would even enhance this effect more. I have thoroughly enjoyed the process. The least appealing part is to come. Finishing it!

boy in blue

Here's Robbie in his new blue muffler that his grandmother, Pat, made for him and mailed to Scotland. It's over 6 feet long and he is still figuring out how to wear it exactly. He even searched on-line with his flatmate, Jim for info on that question. Jim is from the Orkney Islands way up north and he didn't know! Robbie did demo it around his head kinda like a turban. That would definitely work on a windy cold day. I took this pic while R was on Skype. He's looking forward to the Scotland vs. Ireland (or Wales?) rugby game for which he has a ticket. He's staying up til 4 in the a.m. to listen to the Sharks game. Any suggestions for more fun for Robbie while he is in Edinburgh? He's gone to the Highlands, castle and whiskey distillery tour coming up, Parliament, cheese shops, pubs, ... one cathedral... we might go see him in May or June when the sun will be up till 10 p.m. at night. Thanks to Grammy for knitting Robbie a warm and beautiful scarf!

apricot tree says yes

It's February 18, 2009 and the apricot tree in our back yard is budding and blooming. These blossoms survived the days of rain we've had lately. They are almost too pretty to absorb for me. I heard an artist interviewed yesterday on the radio.. apparently a curmudgeon in his working days and as he approached death (he knew he was dying) he talked about how knowing he was going to die helped him live in the moment. So much of our lives, he said, we are robotic in our actions, and this, I add, probably helps us maintain some sanity and groundedness. But in our "unconsciousness" we are not able to appreciate the moment. It does pierce the heart to look closely at such a thing of beauty as the tiny pink and marroon blossoms on the apricot tree. It does stop me in my tracks. But, spring is happening here in Lafayette and it helps me love this place to stop and notice that fact. Life is all around me.

Happy Valentine's Day

My #1 Valentine is on a plane as of 8 a.m. this morning. I bought him (actually Tommy got it for me for Dad in the city) a copy of The Economist for the plane ride. i drove him to the airport at 6 a.m. and I'm now home ... over 2 hrs roundtrip to the airport and back. I went in to the airport to navigate the place with him. What a stressful place! omigosh. Let's draw a parallel: going to the airport and getting on a jet plane is somewhat like getting ready to depart this world and move into the next. It is VERY stressful and a huge undertaking. You have to say goodbye to all the people at home and make sure they are a-okay. You have to get all of your things "in order"... do you have a will? Did you turn off the iron? the tea kettle? Do you have clean underwear? a decent haircut? Then, you have to make your way to the airport... make sure you have gas in the car, or arrange for an airport shuttle. Then, you gotta find parking or just get dropped off.. how far is your family or escort going to accompany you on your journey? Then you shuffle through the airport with all of your earthly belongings that will get through security and weigh under 50 lbs.. not too much baggage can go with you! and if you try to take more, you will PAY for it! Then, there's more saying goodbye.. part of you wants to just get on with it, no more goodbyes, and part of you wants to never leave maybe. Sometimes, IT's hard on the people left behind. Sometimes, they are just ready for you to GO. Let's not prolong this agony, okay? Anyway, now I wait for Pete to call and say he's landed and that he's on his way to his next temporary home, the hotel. Man, I am tired and I didn't really go anywhere, except with Pete for liftoff. Bon voyage, mon amie!

hip problems

How come I feel alone in my health issues: painful hip, sore knee... I met a woman on the bike path yesterday who wanted to greet my dog. Danny IS darned cute. I almost immediately started whining about my hip and how the pain there has kept me from walking for the past 6 months. She also has hip pain, the result of running too many marathons, slight scoliosis, pounding the pavement for too many years. We had similar stories: x-rays, physical therapy, dr's.. she'd even had cortisone shots in her lower back to help with disc problems. Anyway, what I realize now is that my mother and grandmothers didn't have these complaints. They didn't play sports or "work out" and they were all thin. It'd be nice if our generation could pass on some wisdom about body health to the next. I wouldn't have missed rowing our 8 person boat for anything, but maybe running 10 miles on asphalt wasn't great for our bones, or our joints. What one thing would you share with the next generation of women about body health?

writing the sacred

Today I spent up at San Damiano Retreat Center in Danville. A poet and author of Writing the Sacred, Ray McGinnis, of Vancouver, BC led a group of about 35 of us in lessons about sacred poetry using the Psalms as our guide. "The psalms are the voice of our own common humanity.. a voice that continues to have amazing authenticity.. It speaks about life the way it really is, for in those deeply human dimensions the same issues and possibilities exist." W. Brueggemann. We wrote our own psalms using repetition... acrostics, stem sentences, favorite refrains, like Seek and You Shall Find.. filling in stanzas with heartfelt prayer, and letting the pen fly. Most of the participants were mature women, (one man), and had come from all parts of the Bay
Area. A self select group, everyone was eager to learn and write. At the end of the day, I suggested to a group of 8 that I would benefit from writing in a group to continue the practice. I thought maybe a small handful would be interested. Maybe. Six other women said they'd be interested in forming a writing group. Let the e-mails begin! We will seek and we will find God together as a group of praying writers... psalmists.

look out!

Pete said to his co-workers that he was going to leave work early today. His wife had been in a car accident and he was going home to cope with things. His co-worker, Virginia, said he should just leave immediately. She was concerned. Pete assured her that no one had been injured and that the car was just banged up. She said, oh good, and wondered out loud if I'd been involved in an accident with someone from , you know, the nearby retirement community, hah! Pete joined in the laughter and offered that, yes, someone from Rossmoor had hit my car. I often wonder how our older drivers manage. I can hardly make the lightning quick decisions required to get on to the freeway, navigate the school streets, avoid pedestrians near BART at interesections with four stop signs. It's dizzying. Today, an older driver may have sealed the drivers' license question: should I stop driving now? He simply did not see me (in front of him in the next lane over) and he turned in to me. I feel really badly for him. We'll all be there eventually. I just hope someone tells me to stop driving before I get in an accident. and I hope that Mr. **** is being comforted over at his house in Rossmoor.

and away we go!

read that with Ralph Cramden's voice ... is that what he said at the end of the show? Jackie Gleason... he kinda scared me. With a little help from Heidi at the quilt store I assembled some fabrics with which to make a quilt for Pete. It is going to be fun. We began with three or four fabrics that Pete picked out himself, which really left me worried. Boy, I would never have chosen those fabrics myself. How are they beautiful to Pete? and how can I honor them with accompanying fabrics? he said I could run with it and he had confidence that what I chose would "enhance" them. Who knows if he will enjoy the finished product. Heidi was awesome.. she's well acquainted with all of the fabrics in the store, and with the barest distinction between colors.. blue reds from yellow reds, yellow greens from blue greens, whites from ivories, etc. We looked for "movement" and print size and tried to match old fashioned prints with kindred spirit prints. Each pretty pairing is like a good marriage. Complimentary and enhancing. Balanced. You don't recognize it maybe at first, but then a longer look and then, oh yes. "Perfect." Thank you to Pete and thank you to Heidi for this opportunity to create something new.